


Meet Your Storm

by deandratb



Category: The Doctor Blake Mysteries
Genre: F/M, brief appearance by charlie davis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 08:23:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13096194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: Comfort smut, set sometime after their honeymoon.At breakfast the last thing she wanted was to be touched, the very idea of his mouth on hers was too much–but now she finds she needs him, needs the heat between them, more than she needs air or light or life itself.





	Meet Your Storm

It’s all too much. 

Jean couldn’t explain why even if Lucien asked. On the anniversary of Christopher’s death, or his birthday–even their old wedding anniversary–she just expects the gloom to come, a returning black cloud that she fears will never quite leave her entirely. 

Until it does, for a time. Those days, the happier days, come more frequently and last longer now. 

Just having Lucien in her life began to mend the breaks. He was so full of energy, of passion; she saw her pain reflected in his eyes. 

Loving him–being loved by him, complications and all–did more than soothe the guilt and the heartache. It was like spring breaking through a storm; a whole new world layered over the old one. Possibilities. Renewal.

So she spends less time feeling ashamed of her choices, her role in Christopher’s death. She thinks about it less. She lets herself be happy.

That makes today all the worse, really. She’s no longer accustomed to this sort of…melancholy. Over-sensitivity. 

Jean snaps at Charlie when he comments on the breakfast she cooked for them; she turns just slightly away when Lucien leans in for a kiss, letting his lips glance off her cheek rather than accept the connection.

She wants to go back to bed, burrow under the covers, and pretend she has nowhere to be and no one relying on her.

Of course, it’s never that simple. She has a Drama Society meeting in the afternoon, and her flowers need tending. Plus, someone needs to clean the carpets, and there’s little chance it would ever occur to Lucien.

Carry on she must, however much every little thing is irritating her–grating on her usually steady nerves.

Lucien, worry creasing his forehead, grips her hand as he leaves. He doesn’t try to kiss her again, though she can tell it pains him. Their freedom now, to express how they feel for each other–to touch, and kiss, and love just as fiercely as the sun burns–is a victory neither takes for granted.

But she can’t handle it today, she can’t. She can barely handle being awake and upright. Washing the dishes, making the bed…all the simple, easy tasks that normally comfort her in their familiarity.

Each one is a weight on her shoulders, and she doesn’t know why.

So she sees Lucien off to work, after Charlie leaves unusually quickly, and starts dragging herself through her chores. 

Jean gives herself an hour for the routine tasks of the day, along with tending her flowers. She can’t seem to work at her usual pace, though, and as the next hour begins she’s only just gotten to her plants.

That’s where Lucien finds her, standing with watering can in hand, staring off into space. 

“Jean? Darling?”

“Hmm?” She blinks, a few long moments where she isn’t his Jean, where she’s no one at all, and then she comes back to him. “Oh, Lucien! Sorry. What are you doing home?”

“The case Matthew needed me for, there’s nothing more I can do now until Alice finishes the autopsy.”

“Right. Well, don’t you want to be there, for that part?” She can’t understand it, having already seen more death than she ever needed to–but he enjoys the puzzles, respects the victims. He likes to work with Alice, bringing justice to them.

She loves that about him.

“No, not today,” he tells her, crossing to take the watering can out of her hand and set it aside. “Today, I think this is exactly where I need to be.”

Jean bites down hard on her bottom lip, feeling the tears start to come and willing them back. “I don’t think I’ll be very good company today.”

“That’s all right.” He gathers her in his arms, not deterred by how pliable she is, how unresponsive. She’s focusing all her energy on holding the dark, churning feelings in, where they won’t be able to harm anyone else. “I can be good enough company for the both of us, yes?” 

Lucien kisses each of her temples, then her cheeks, then nuzzles his face into the curve of her neck, breathing her in.

“It’s okay, love,” he murmurs against her skin. “You’re going to be okay. This will pass.”

She pulls back to search his eyes, finding nothing but understanding there. “How did you–”

“I know you,” he reminds her between kisses. On her collarbone now, and her shoulder. Then finally, achingly slow and desperately sweet, on her lips. 

At breakfast the last thing she wanted was to be touched, the very idea of his mouth on hers was too much–but now she finds she needs him, needs the heat between them, more than she needs air or light or life itself.

Lucien, intending simply to comfort, finds himself wrapped up in miles of softness and fragrance and fire and Jean. Her hands are tugging his coat off and threading through his hair until it begins to curl and yanking impatiently at his tucked-in shirt, needing him to catch up. 

Her love and desire and craving for him is a thrumming beat in her blood, under her skin. The day has her moods shifting more rapidly than the wind, but this mood she can indulge. Now, Lucien can help her.

“Please,” she breathes into his mouth, running her nails along his neck as he unbuttons her blouse. “Please, Lucien.”

He does know her. After so many years together, after so many warm nights in Europe and chilly ones back home in Ballarat, he knows her more intimately than he has ever known anyone else. He hears the plea in her voice and gives her mercy, bringing his mouth and tongue to her bared breast while he slides his hand under her skirt.

“Let go,” he says in that rough tone of his that’s reserved only for her. “Just let me–ah.”

Lucien is grinning against her shoulder as he feels her start to shake. So soon, so much quicker than normal. She’s so wet, aching for him, that he pushes her over with just his fingertips and thumb and a nip along the tendons of her neck.

It’s horrible, the two of them in the middle of the day like this where anyone could see them. Even for newlyweds, it’s not at all proper.

Jean can feel the void in her finally starting to retract its claws, and doesn’t care.

She tugs off his shirt, running her hands over his chest and stomach and down further, enjoying the way he shivers. 

“Not yet,” he tells her, nudging her back against the wall while she frowns. Still half-dressed, he kneels, and her mouth drops open. 

This, they’ve done **this** before, but only in decadent Paris, a little sloppy on wine and drunk on the city. She couldn’t manage to feel self-conscious, not after they strolled through the crowds full of beautiful women but Lucien could only stare at her.

It’s different here, in the bright light of day, when she’s feeling wrong and sad and needy and sharp all at once. He can’t possibly want to–

Her husband, with a wicked, knowing grin, as though he can hear her thoughts, tugs her skirt down and lays it aside.

She stops thinking.

When Charlie comes home for dinner that night, he’s relieved to find Jean in much better spirits. If he notices the bruise on the back of her neck or the way she’s carrying herself a bit carefully as she walks, he’s smart enough to say nothing.

Lucien compliments her roast and kisses the back of her hand, and the skies are clear again.

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from "Momentum" by Vienna Teng.


End file.
